Kick Off the Season of Giving With Teas for Gen Z
The sprint is on. With Halloween behind us, it’s just three weeks until Thanksgiving, followed immediately by Black Friday and Small Business Saturday. And then the holidays take over. Our errands, culinary pursuits, house decorating, even our clothes—the holidays can drive and decorate just about any corner of our lives.
The season ranks as essential for many small businesses, including ours. Its power to lift businesses revolves around a lovely human practice, one the holidays stoke: giving gifts. Businesses during the holidays, from restaurants to apparel stores to tea shops, don’t boost their bottom lines due to people buying for themselves. Instead, the season lifts prosperity through its ability to encourage selflessness and gratitude. What a season!
From now until January, turn to this newsletter for thematic gift ideas. We’ll talk tea, champion accessories, offer recipes and more. Topics will run the gamut: gifts for hosts, Hanukkah celebrants, teachers and co-workers, aging parents, the person who has everything.
One of many things we cherish about giving tea as a gift: It invites the recipient to slow down and savor the moment. In many ways, tea is the gift of time.
Tea and Gen Z
Let’s kick off the season of giving with ideas for Gen Zers. Drawing sweeping conclusions about a generation born between 1997 and 2012—meaning today they range from about 14 to 29—challenges even the most incisive and thorough demographer.
A few things we do know about the generation: Covid-19 shaped their lives; artificial intelligence looms as a uniquely powerful tool and an existential threat to their careers; and affordability—of rent, homes, groceries, vacations, you name it—has emerged as a foundational issue. Years of inflation with little relief have made everything more expensive. The “American dream” seems far out of reach for Gen Zers compared to earlier generations.
Gen Zers are savvy and curious. They care about transparency and authenticity. Brick-and-mortar experiences excite them, even as e-commerce continues its efflorescence.
With some of this in mind, let’s turn to Gen Z teas for the holidays!
Gen Z Teas: Young Spring Green
We think everybody should pick up a green tea habit. Most people in the United States grew up with black tea, in the form of iced tea. This is fine—hey, we endorse any route toward tea consumption. But mass-produced iced tea does not represent tea excellence—ever. Meanwhile, people across Asia and in other countries brew and sip tea all day, every day, from childhood into old age. And in many cases, green stands as the tea of choice. It’s versatile, healthy, delicious—an ideal daily companion. To that end, we suggest offering this simple and affordable green tea to any Gen Zer in your life. Farmers in China’s Sichuan Province pick the leaves for this tea in early spring, as new leaves emerge from tea plants—thus, the tea’s name. With a vegetal and slightly nutty character, our Young Spring green tea makes for an outstanding everyday tea.
Gen Z Teas: Dark Chocolate Pu-erh
Most Gen Zers have digested impressive volumes of content by now—everything from TikTok influencers championing restaurants in Rome to YouTube political commentators to Instagram stars going deep with interior design or fashion. While they may not have traveled the world, they’re probably more worldly than previous generations. As such, they respond to novelty—to things they have not experienced before. Cue, pu-erh. This style of tea, the only prominent fermented tea, has appealed to tea aficionados for decades. Tea artisans in China ferment tea leaves in different ways before storing them, often in brick-shaped or circular cakes. These cakes not only withstand aging—the brews grow increasingly complex as time passes. While pu-erh is not exactly rare, it’s also a style of tea largely absent from supermarket shelves and restaurant menus. Thrill at least one curious and passionate Gen Zer in your life with this affordable style of pu-erh, which comes with black tea, cacao nibs, rice herb (a kind of herb grown in Asia that conveys rice-like flavors) and vanilla. It’s unforgettable, and delicious.
Gen Z Teas: Iron Buddha Premium Rock Oolong
Among the many interesting nuggets of information that demographers have unearthed from Gen Z research: Many of them are willing to spend more for high-quality, artisan objects, while simultaneously engaging with budget shopping elsewhere. In the realm of tea, one style that fits the artisan angle is rock oolong. These famous teas all grow in the Wuyi Mountains of China’s Fujian Province. Iron Buddha, known as Tie Luo Han in Chinese, ranks as one of the four most famous rock oolong varieties. Grown in Guidong, or Ghost Cave, it gets a heavy roast from tea farmers, yielding the darkest and richest among the rock oolongs. Brew this beautiful tea and the fragrance of burning juniper incense might captivate your spirit, conjuring images of the temples where buddhas still lead the way to liberation and enlightenment.
While Iron Buddha does not fall into the “affordable” category by weight, we sell it in smaller, affordable—and beautiful—packages that make for excellent gifts. One nice side note about rock oolongs—you can brew the same tea leaves over and over again. Each steeping produces a tea with slightly different flavor. So that practice does contribute toward affordability.
Gen Z Teas: Boulder Boost (Organic)
We know Gen Zers appreciate bespoke gifts—handmade cards, monograms, wooden spoons carved by humans rather than machines in factories. Many of our blends result from our own tinkering with formulas, including this fantastic tea. As adventurous people flood Colorado, we decided to create a custom tea for them. So we formulated a blend dense with fuel and a range of beneficial botanicals. To begin, our organic Boulder Boost contains Madagascar vanilla black tea—a sumptuous tea. To that we add South American guayusa—a plant similar to yerba mate that contains caffeine—plus rooibos, tulsi, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, fennel and rose. As Gen Zers are all either still in school of some sort—high school through medical school—or pursuing careers, they need caffeine’s boost. They need electrolytes, here delivered by rooibos. Tulsi brings balance. Cinnamon, ginger, allspice, fennel and rose all contribute digestive and other advantages to this extraordinary tea.
